Email is good.

A blog ostensibly about email productivity by Chris Coyier who you can email, obviously, at chris@coyier.com

Gina Trapani:

I like to keep my email inbox clear and deal with messages as they come in, and archive or delete them when I’m done. But I’d fallen deeply behind on my personal email inbox a few years ago and never dug myself out.

Realizing I had almost 4,000 unprocessed threads, I considered declaring email bankruptcy and moving on. But I wanted to build up my muscle of handling incoming messages each day, to unsubscribe from newsletters and marketing I didn’t want, and to build a list of people I want to be in touch with—and who I’ve ignored for far too long.

YES.

I think the best way to get on top of your email is to put in the work and get on top of your email. Chipping away at it, doing the things you need to do along the way so that it doesn’t get so bad again, is the job. Motivating yourself by tracking progress, as Gina has done here with a home-brewed app, is awesome.

Posted in

2 responses to “Elbow Grease”

  1. keithbradnam Avatar

    Tracking progress (or lack of it) is just the thing I turn to in so many situations. At work I have a lower-tech solution to the same thing that Gina has done. Every morning I just log how many emails are in my inbox and in my three active email folders (yes, just three…’Action’, ‘Waiting’, and ‘Read’).

    Charting these and keeping track of the overall number of emails that need action is something that helps motivate me to try keeping that number lower.

    1. m. Avatar

      Keith, I love the idea of only having three folders 😄

      Could you put some more words on your thoughts behind?

Leave a Reply

Discover more from Email is good.

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading